Focusing on the Rule of Law derived from our Constitution, and laughing at Republicans who bow to a King.

2008-07-02

Boortz call notes - Habeas/Impeachment

Again, I got almost all of this on the air:

Neal started the call by saying the people mentioning Habeas bore him, so I led off with Churchill's quote:

Why Habeas is important: The power of the Executive to cast a man into prisonwithout formulating any charge known to the law, and particularly to deny himthe judgment of his peers, is in the highest degree odious and is the foundationof all totalitarian government whether Nazi or Communist.

(That made him feel foolish right from the beginning. How nice for me.)

My question is a thought experiment about a President Obama, and what a libertarian minded person should do about it. Assume Obama wins, and argues at some point that he has the right to detain any US citizen, indefinitely, without charge, and does so for what he says are Nat Security reasons. I've gotta problem with that, and I assume you do too, right?

Right, that's a constitutional crisis. Well, what should be done about it? ... is impeachment the remedy for that constitutional crisis? (of course, he wouldn't allow himself to commit when he knew I was going to turn it against Bush.)

When he quibbles over US Resident/US Citizen rights: Supreme Court has always found that anyone in the US Territorial Jurisdiction has constitutional rights.

BUT I don't need that, since the judge in the case wasn't an idiot. He asked:

"What you assert is the power of the military to seize a person in the United States, including an American citizen, on suspicion of being an enemy combatant?" Judge William B. Traxler asked.

"Yes, your honor," Justice Department lawyer Gregory Garre replied.

Now that's not liberal fever swamp stuff, Neal! That's Bush's lawyers saying he has the powers of a King. Now I am a libertarian Democrat, and I don't want ANY president having that power! We have a few months Neal in which to fix this. YOU could do it Neal, if you made the full throated case. If you had Bruce Fein on, Reagan's Dept Attorney General, he'd convince you, and you could convince your millions. If the Republicans pushed for this, they might actually retain power!